Currently at my university I am part of the EPSA (Écurie Piston Sport Auto), an association of engineering students that each year designs and builds a prototype of Formula Student. However, it would be wrong to think that such a project could be sustained only by dedicating itself to these two tasks. You also need project management, seeking funding and partners, training the students who come in each year, managing communication and many other things.
As a member of the association, in addition to carrying out my tasks as an “engineer”, I am in charge of taking all the photographs of the team. Among those photographs, there are the tedious product photographs.
It is not a field in which I have moved much, and I don’t like it. It’s difficult to make an attractive photograph of carved aluminum pieces. However, they are necessary to give thanks to the sponsors who have paid for them or who have just given them for free.
In spite of everything, there is something very positive about taking pictures of unattractive objects: it is the photographer who has to make them look attractive. And that has taught me a lot. It has allowed me to think differently, to think of angles I might not have thought of. It forces you to play with the light you have so that it is on your side. It forces you to think outside the box.
Little by little I begin to understand how a flash works: where the light is reflected, what power to give it, where to orient it… The light in the aluminium pieces can be fun… or not so fun. In the end they are high contrast photos with direct reflections and very dark areas.
The conclusion I draw from all this is that, from time to time, having a project in some kind of photography that you are not good at can teach you more than you might think. It teaches you techniques you can later use in other types of photographs.
